tweets like do you agree that drag story hour should be mandated for elementary school students, and why does it seem like most republicans are pedophiles? the account had 130,000 followers. the top tweet viewed 27 million times. twitter took down the account a few weeks ago. it was a fake, but the photos were not. now cnn exclusively shares the real face that's on the notorious account. are you erica marsh. >> no. >> reporter: why are you talking to us? >> i want to tell the world that's not me. my name is not erica marsh. i am courtney. >> reporter: she lives in a rural part of the tampa bay area. she showed cnn her original photos nearly a decade old, she says stolen from her facebook
page by whoever or whatever is behind this account named erica marsh. the photos on the account are from when courtney was still a teenager. she's since gotten married and had children. let me have you read erica marsh's most popular tweet that got over 27 million views and then tell me what you think. >> today's supreme court decision is a direct attack on black people. no black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system. >> reporter: what do you think? >> i'm speechless. >> reporter: speechless because while this viral fake account shares courtney's face, they do not share the same politics. are you liberal? >> no ma'am. no. >> reporter: are you republican? >> yes, ma'am. >> reporter: can you ask you which way you voted in the last presidential elections? >> of course i voted for trump. >> reporter: you sense the irony here, right? >> yes. >> reporter: some people thought this was an ai-generated image. >> yeah.
Transcripts for CNN CNN Newsroom With Fredricka Whitfield 20240604 16:28:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
>> reporter: a professor at clemson studied disinformation and trolling. what is erica marsh? is it a parody, a troll, a disinformation campaign? >> erica marsh is a fake online influencer. she isn't a troll in the way that a lot of viewers may think of a troll. >> reporter: he believes this was the work of a professional. >> this is not an amateur, no. it would be very hard for an amateur to get to well over 100,000 followers in such a short amount of time. >> reporter: courtney's pictures plucked on purpose. >> she looks all american, she looks friendly. ultimately it's about influence, meant to engage with a specific audience. >> reporter: whether the goal of the account was to generate money or sow division, the real owner is likely still operating on the platform. is there anyway to tell who's responsible for erica marsh or where they come from? >> that's the million dollar
Erica Marsh quickly rose to fame earlier this year as a viral left-wing voice on social media. Her incendiary tweets, often ultra-liberal and hyper-political, drew millions of views and the ire of conservatives, who pointed to her outlandish comments comparing Republicans to pedophiles and conservative Supreme Court justices to Nazis as examples of extreme liberalism run amok.
>> this is not an amateur, no. it would be very hard for an amateur to get to well over 100,000 followers in such a short amount of time. >> reporter: and kourtney's pictures plucked on purpose. >> she looks all american. she looks friendly. but ultimately, it's about influence. it's meant to engage with a very specific audience and to get people a little bit angry. >> reporter: whether the goal of the account was to generate money or sow division. the real owner of erica marsh is still likely operating on the platform. >> is there any way to tell who's responsible for erica marsh or where they come from? >> it's just fake. it's just fake. the whole thing was fake. >> and on the profile, it says erica marsh worked on the biden/obama campaign. i assume that was fake as well. >> anderson, it was all made up, and quite sophisticated there. experts tell us this easily could have been the work of a foreign government or even a
touching again on one of our top stories tonight. the proportion names and addresses of the grand jury members from georgia or circulated online of have led to threats against them. that's just one example of how everyday americans can be victimized by social media. we've seen plenty of online disinformation campaigns and fake images generated with a. i.. tonight isabelle a realist as an exclusive report how republican unwittingly became the face of a fake but far left popular account on twitter. >> erica marsh >> erica marsh. >> erica. >> erica marsh. >> erica marsh quickly roses a viral left-wing voice and left
says she had nothing to do with it. live from atlanta this morning, good morning. what did she say? >> reporter: good morning to you, poppy. for so long she felt she was just screaming out into the void as she saw this account just take off saying that her face was stolen. she was not actually saying all of this. now she is ready to tell her story and set the record straight. her name is courtney. >> erica marsh. >> erica marsh. >> erica. >> reporter: erica marsh quickly rose as a viral left wing voice on social media. her tweets ultra liberal and politically charged drew millions of views, and the ire of republicans. tweets like, do you agree that drag story hour should be implemented for elementary students? and, why does it seem most republicans are pedophiles? the account had nearly 130,000 followers. marsh's top tweet, more than 27 million times, twitter, goes by
>> this is not an imager, no. it would be hard for an amateur to get that many follow yours in such a short amount of time. she looks all american. she looks friendly but ultimately it's about influence. it's meant to engage with a very specific audience and to get people a little bit angry. >> reporter: whether the goal of the account was to generate money or sow division, he says the real owner of erica marsh is likely still operating on the platform. is there any way to tell who is responsible for erica marsh or where they come from? >> that's the million dollar question, isn't it? >> it's just fake. it's fake. the whole thing was fake. >> reporter: and the profile claimed she worked for the biden campaign. like everything else that was all made up. experts say this easily could have been the work of a foreign government or group or perhaps even a ploy to make money from all the clicks and attention the account was getting. either way, there is a real
x, took down the account. it was a fake. but the photos were not. now cnn exclusively shares the real face that's on the notorious account. are you erica marsh? >> no. >> reporter: but that's your face. >> seems to be. >> reporter: why are you talking to us? >> i want to tell the world that that's not me. my name is not erica marsh. i am courtney. >> reporter: she lives in a rural part of the tampa bay area in florida. she showed cnn her original photos nearly a decade old. she says they were stolen from her facebook page. the photos on the account are from when courtney was still a teenager. she has since gotten married and had children. courtney, let me have you read erica marsh's probably most popular tweet that got over 27 million views and then tell me what you think about it. >> today's supreme court decision is a direct attack on